The Unjust Steward or The Minister's Debt. Маргарет Олифант

has always been my companion,” Elsie said.

      “And you would think he would wish for you? but no: his Johnny Wemyss and his Alick Beaton, or was it Ralph?—that’s what he likes far best, except, of course, when he falls in love, and then he will run after the lassie wherever she goes, till she takes him, and it’s all settled, and then he just goes back to his men, as before. It is a very mysterious thing to me,” said Marion, “but I have thought a great deal about it, and it’s quite true. I do not like myself,” she added, with a pause of reflection, “men that are always at a woman’s tails. If you never could turn round or do a thing without your man after you, it would be a great bother. I am sure mamma feels that; she is always easy in her mind when my father is set down very busy to his sermon, or when somebody comes in to talk to him, or he goes out to his dinner with Professor Grant. Then she is sure he will be happy, and it leaves her free. I will just feel the same about Matthew, and he about me. He would not be without me for all the world, but he will never want me when he gets with his own cronies. Now, we always seem to have a kind of want of them.”

      “You have just said that mamma was quite happy when she got papa off her hands,” Elsie said.

      “That is a different thing; but do you think for a moment that she would enjoy herself with a party of women as he does at Professor Grant’s? That she would not; she is glad to get him off her hands because she is sure he will enjoy himself, and be no trouble to anybody. But that would be little pleasure to her, if she were to do the same: and you yourself, if you had all the Seatons and the Beatons that ever were born–”

      “I want only Rodie, my own brother,” Elsie said, with indignation.

      “And he,” said Marion, calmly reflecting, “does not want you; that is just what I say—and what is so queer a thing.”

      “If the case of a man is so with his wife?” said Elsie, oracularly.

      “Toots—the man is just very well off,” said Marion. “He gets his wife to take care of him, and then he just enjoys himself with his own kind.”

      “Then I would never marry,” cried Elsie; “not whatever any one might say.”

      “That is very well for you,” said Marion. “You will be the only daughter when I am away; they will be very well contented if you never marry; for, to be left without a child in the house, would be hard enough upon mamma. But even, with all my plenishing ready, and the things marked, and everything settled—not that I would like to part with Matthew, even if there was no plenishing—I would rather have him without a tablecloth than any other man with the finest napery in the world. But I just know what will happen, and I am quite pleased, and it is of no use going against human nature. For company, they will always like their own kind best. But then, on the other hand, women are not so keen about company. When there’s a family, they are generally very well content to bide at home, and be thankful when their man enjoys himself without fashing anybody.”

      This is not a doctrine which would, perhaps, be popular with women nowadays; but, in Marion’s time, it was considered a kind of gospel in its way.

      Elsie was not much interested in the view of man, as husband, put forth by her sister. Her mind did not go out towards that development of humanity; but the defection of Rodie, her own brother as she said, was a more serious matter. Most girls in as large family have an own brother their natural pair, the one most near to them in age or temperament. It had once been Willie and Marion, just as it had once been Elsie and Rodie; but Elsie could not bear the thought that Rodie might become to her, by his own will, the same as Willie was to Marion—her brother, but not her own brother, with no special tie between them. Her mind was constantly occupied by the thought of it, and how it was to be averted. Marion, she thought, had done nothing to lead Willie back when he first began to go after, what Marion called, his own kind, and to jilt his sister: so far from that, she had brought in a stranger into the family, a Matthew, to re-open and widen the breach, so that it was natural that Willie should go out of nights, and like his young men’s parties, and come in much later than pleased father. This was not a thing that Elsie would do—she would bring in no strange man. All the Matthews in the world might flutter round her, but she would never give Rodie any reason to think that there was anybody she wanted but her brother—no, whatever might happen, she would be faithful to Rodie, even if it were true, as Marion said, that men (as if Rodie were a man!) liked their own kind best. Why, she was his own kind; who could be so near him as his sister, his own sister, the one that was next in the family?

      Elsie went seriously into this question, as seriously as any forsaken wife could do, whose husband was being led astray from her, as she took a melancholy ramble by herself along the east sands, where Rodie never accompanied her now. She asked herself what she could do to bring him back, to make him feel that, however his Johnnys and his Alicks might tempt him for the moment, it was Elsie that was his true friend: she must never scold him, nor taunt him with liking other folk better, she must always be kind, however unkind he might be. With these excellent resolutions warm in her mind, it happened to Elsie to see, almost straight in front of her, hanging on the edge of a pool among the rocks, Rodie himself, in company with Johnny Wemyss, the newly-chosen friend of his heart. Johnny was up to his elbows in the pool, digging out with his hands the strange things and queer beasts to be found therein; and half to show the charity of her thoughts, half out of curiosity and desire to see what they were about, Elsie hurried on to join them. Johnny Wemyss was a big boy, bigger than Rodie, as old as Elsie herself—roughly clad, with big, much-mended nailed boots, clouted shoon, as he would himself have called them, and his rough hair standing out under the shabby peak of his sailor’s cap.

      “What are you doing—oh, what are you finding? Let me see,” cried Elsie, coming up behind them with noiseless feet on the wet but firm sand.

      Johnny Wemyss gave a great start, and raised himself up, drawing his bare and dripping arms out of the water, and standing confused before the young lady, conscious that he was not company for her, nor even for her brother, the minister’s son, he who came of mere fisher folk.

      But Rodie turned round fierce and threateningly, with his fists clenched in his pockets.

      “What are you wanting?” he cried. “Can you not let a person abee? We are no wanting any lassies here.”

      “Rodie,” cried his sister, flushed and almost weeping, “do you say that to me?”

      “Ay do I!” cried Rodie, red with wrath and confusion. “What are you wanting? We just want no lassies here.”

      Elsie gave him but one look of injured love and scorn, and, without saying another word, turned round and walked away.

      Oh, May was right! she was only a lassie to her own brother, and he had insulted her before that Johnny, who was the cause of it all—she only hoped they were looking after her to see how firm she walked, and that she was not crying—no, she would not cry—why should she cry about him, the hard-hearted, unkind boy? and with that, Elsie’s shoulders heaved, and a great sob rent her breast.

      She had indeed mourned his desertion before: yet this was practically her first revelation of the hollowness of life.

      Meanwhile, Rodie was far from comfortable on his side; all the more that Johnny Wemyss gave him a kick with his clouted shoe, and said, with the frankness of friendship:

      “Ye little cankered beast—how dare ye speak to her like that? How can she help it if she is a lassie?—it’s no her blame!”

      CHAPTER VI.

      A HOUSEHOLD CONTROVERSY

      Notwithstanding the great sobriety of her views, as disclosed above, Marion, on the eve of her marriage, was no doubt the most interesting member of the Buchanan family; and, if anything could have “taken off” the mind of Elsie from her own misfortune, it would have been the admiring and wondering study she was quite unconsciously making of her sister, who had come to the climax of a girl’s life, and who regarded it with so staid and middle-aged a view. Marion had always been a very steady sort of girl all her life, it was common to say. There was no nonsensical enthusiasm about her. Even when in love—that is, in the vague and gaseous period, before it has come to anything,